Yasutaka Tsutsui‘s novel Paprika has already been adapted into animation by Satoshi Kon, but back in August of last year it was announced that a live-action feature version would be directed by Wolfgang Peterson. Now Peterson has issued a brief update on the adaptation, and he sounds like he’s planning for it to be big, if nothing else.

MTV talked to Peterson, who loved the anime telling of the story, and says that he’s got a very detailed treatment in hand that, if given the signal to move forward, should generate a script quickly.

Peterson says,

We open it up a little bit more so it’s more accessible for a wide audience, but it comes a little bit sort of “Matrix” feel. Not like Matrix but sort of the size of it all, the scope of it all. So that it becomes more of a film for a mainstream audience.

There was a point, thanks to Das Boot and In the Line of Fire, when Peterson’s name would have courted a lot more enthusiasm for this. Or cautious interest, at least. But it’s been a case of ‘what have you done for me lately,’ with him in the past fifteen years. Look at the list: Outbreak, Troy, Poseidon. When the highlights are The Perfect Storm and Air Force One, i.e. serviceable but not terribly memorable movies, then can we hope for a telling of Paprika that will be appropriately provocative?

Because Paprika, which deals with a machine that can launch people into others’ dreams, it’s very possible that Peterson’s film is going to have to compete with Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Actually, having seen the most recent Inception trailer and then re-watching Paprika (see the trailer below for a sample), it’s hard to figure that Nolan wasn’t already inspired by Satoshi Kon’s film in some measure.